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DGITAL has developed the JetSMART website in 2017 and managing it ever since. The developer team of DGITAL played and will continue to play a key role in the realisation of JetSMARTs vision in South America.
Our co-operation has just passed a milestone when JetSMART Airlines Argentina started commercial operations with its first route linking Buenos Aires (SADP/EPA)—Mendoza. JetSMART will compete in the low cost segment with Flybondi Líneas Aéreas and Norwegian Air Argentina.
With a first flight from El Palomar Airport to Mendoza, the low cost airline JetSmart will start its cabotage operations on Wednesday 10 April 2019, in Argentina. During the presentation were also the Minister of Transportation Guillermo Dietrich and the Secretary of Tourism of the Nation, Gustavo Santos.
On Thursday 11 April 2019, JetSmart Airlines Argentina will add the first flight to Neuquén and Friday 12 April 2019 to Córdoba. Then the operations will arrive in Salta and Tucumán (April), Bariloche (May) and Puerto Iguazú (June). In a span of two months, the airline will open 17 routes, 10 of them without going through Buenos Aires.
The base of operations is, in principle, El Palomar Airport, since JetSmart Airlines did not rule out using Aeroparque as well. Flybondi Líneas Aéreas has its operations from El Palomar, another low cost, Norwegian Air Argentina, operates from Aeroparque.
Since the beginning of the sale of tickets, acceptance in the market has been important: “We have had a great acceptance since the beginning of our ticket sales and we are currently above the 70% average occupancy in the announced routes”, Gonzalo said. Pérez Corral, General Manager of the company, who added that they seek to replicate, in Argentina, the model of Chile: in 2018 they transported 2.5 million passengers, with a growth of 25% over the previous year. The interesting thing is that most are new passengers who join the traditional market.
The airline will be focused on the domestic market for the following years. With regard to the international market could study open routes from 2020 on to identify the most profitable markets, said Estuardo Ortiz, CEO of the low cost airline. The company is immersed in a change of air culture: “We must break the perception that low cost is low quality”.
DGITAL participated on World Travel Market London, the leading global event for the travel industry to meet industry professionals and conduct business deals.
We joined more than 50,000 travel industry professionals on ExCeL – London to discover the latest industry opinion and trends.
If you thought it was impossible to fly with even lower prices, we tell you that JetSMART - with the contribution of DGITAL - has launched the Discount Club and now every customer can save even more every time they fly.
Travelers expect travel brands to deliver a great mobile experience, if you’re not living up to their standard, they won’t be returning anytime soon. Up until recently “mobile” really meant either mobile apps, found in places like the App Store, or mobile web, accessible via URLs. Travelers are increasingly turning to the app experience, rather than mobile web, to search and book flights and accommodation. They feel, lightning-fast mobile experience is best through apps. Consumers also value the additional functionality and features that the native platforms bring.
Travel brands that can match their app experience to consumer expectations will drive more bookings, add more ancillaries and create longer-term value. And those travel brands that don’t deliver will suffer through online cart-abandonment, as well a pummeling on social media and app store ratings.
Due to the advantages of speed and UX, travelers download and use apps to search and book travel. For travel brands, key features like push notifications, promotions and discounts, automatic log-in, trip details, air miles and payment details need to be available via their mobile platforms.
When it comes to check-in and boarding passes it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that apps are the favourite choice but things start to get interesting when you compare apps and web for travel search and booking. More than half of people prefer to use apps for searching for flights and accommodation and web wins out being the preferred choice when it comes to car rental and destination bookings.
In fact, mobile apps are increasingly being viewed as engagement platforms, given their ability to interact with consumers throughout the trip. These engagement points vary, from prompting them to book via a discounted offer to notifying them of delays or gate changes, sending contextual at-destination information and driving usage post-booking with loyalty updates.
It’s important to note that any old mobile experience won’t do — having a 1- or 2-star rated app is basically a death sentence for an app. Travelers value UX highly: 85% say they would be more likely to book a trip with a brand that had a good user experience. Conversely, if they had a bad app experience, 69% would be unlikely to book with that brand again. To summarize: Great UX = Great loyalty. Bad UX = Bad loyalty
Travelers are spending more time and more money on apps. They have come to expect a fast, frictionless, helpful experience when they search and book their travel when they prepare to take off, when they’re in destination and when they return home. The brands that can deliver that end-to-end engagement will win.
HINTS & TIPS
to make apps work harder
Onboarding
The average travel app loses 64% of users after 30 days. To address this, CleveTap suggests a strong onboarding with a positive and beneficial experience that encourages repeat use.
Travel apps enjoy 63% opt-in rates, defined as the number of users who grant permission for notifications in-app, by push notifications, email, SMS and similar channels. CleverTap suggests this performance could be improved through personalized in-app messages as a welcome on the first launch, promoting opt-ins by making the clear the value to users of notifications, and knowing when users are most active on the app to engage with them at the right time.
The average time between download and first log-in for travel app users is 18 minutes, which reflects a sense of urgency and interest in the app. CleverTap suggests that this time could be reduced by welcoming users by email to encourage a response, A/B testing the creatives on the app and email welcome messages, and using social logins to reduce the time it takes to get detailed user profile information. Other metrics to monitor are average app load (launch) time, average cost to the brand per user registration, and the crash rate of the app.
Engagement
CleverTap reports that 80% of users perform a search and engage within 44 minutes of onboarding. To encourage further engagement the company suggests sending offers and coupons to first-time users via SMS, using geo-location to send personalized recommendations, and using deep links directly to the booking page.
The travel industry benchmark for click-through rates (CTRs) on campaigns is 8.32%. CleverTap suggests that can be improved by finding the optimal time of day for messages. Messages should be personalized based on purchase and search history as well as location. CleverTap also recommends using a custom alert sound for messages which helps reinforce brand recall.
The shopping cart abandonment rate is 78.6% for users showing purchase intent. To reduce this figure, CleverTap suggests streamlining the path to purchase to eliminate points of friction, finding the window of opportunity to re-engage with dropped users, and engaging with users in real-time by sending personalized messages to those who abandon their cart.
CleverTap also suggests knowing the average session length for users of the brand’s particular app.
Retention
The industry benchmark for retention is that 63% of users converted in the apps move to the retention stage within a week. And a 10% increase in retention can increase the value of the business by more than 30%, CleverTap claims. To drive users towards retention, CleverTap recommends that brands use psychographic segmentation to learn user preferences and interests. Brands should also understand the most popular categories that drive conversions and promote those. Brands should also create ‘potential loyalist’ user segments and focus on nurturing those.
To benchmark for app stickiness—the measure of how much users engage with a product or feature—is 27.4% of retained users. The average retention rate is 48.3% after 30 days of users.
Reinstalls
Churn — app deletion — is another factor to monitor closely. The industry benchmark is that 35% of users churn within two weeks of downloading the app and 42.5% uninstall the app within 30 days of install. Brands should know their own average churn time and time personalized offers, or promotions of underused app features prior to their “churn” time to keep users engaged.
Even after uninstall, brands can regain some users through well-timed personalized offers. An average 57.6% of users will reinstall the app one month after uninstalling it.
Join us in celebrating spring in the southern hemisphere!
We are happy to share the news about the new South American destinations of JetSMART: routes to Argentina - Mendoza, Buenos Aires and Córdoba - are now available at ultra low prices, only at JetSMART!
The DGITAL team is proud to take part of this expansion as business partner of JetSMART.
The Aviation Festival London is now in its 15th year. Terrapinn - the organizer of the event - examined the latest technology trends impacting the aviation and travel industry and listed the top five buzzwords featured on their three-day, 300+ speaker agenda.
Digital Surprise! Number one is, of course digital. Digital technology is allowing airlines to rethink current archaic processes and build fantastic digital experiences into their offering.
Experience A new model of the relationship with customers is emerging, one that is agile, consistent and ultimately more personalised. A lot of this is being done by utilising digital technologies and embracing the power of being mobile-first to create a unique and engaging passenger experience.
Loyalty Many airlines have rewritten loyalty rules in recent years to make their rewards more personalised and their programs more profitable. One of the many challenges in the loyalty space is around the fact that customers are unique and want different things. One way to address this is through dynamic offers.
Ancillary Online retailers have increased passenger’s expectations tenfold, the average traveller is used to contextual marketing, personalised experiences and a fast-acting service. To evolve airlines need to take big digital transformation lessons from mainstream retailers to enhance passenger experience and boost sales.
AI Airlines are just starting to embrace artificial intelligence in all areas of the business. Initially a tool for revenue managers it now permeates throughout the whole passenger experience and could offer a whole host of solutions to improve everyday operations. Machine learning and AI have the potential to induce profitability and cut costs. It is going to be exciting to hear about the next generation AI tools being envisaged.
(via tnooz)